Which video game company started making playing cards?

The majority of modern video game companies began in the second part of the 20th century with the growing popularity of arcade games, followed by console games. However, Nintendo traces its roots back to the late 19th century. Nintendo has long been the leading provider of playing cards in Japan.

In the fall of 1

889, Fusajiro Yamauchi opened the doors of Nintendo Koppai. The entire product range of the company consisted of handmade Hanafuda cards. Hanafuda, literally "flower cards", is the Japanese equivalent of poker cards and is used for a variety of strategy and gambling games. Yamauchi's cards became so popular that he quickly expanded the company to meet demand. Over the next century, Nintendo became the most popular playing card company in Japan.

In the mid-1960s, however, the market faltered and Nintendo sought new markets to enter. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Fusajiro's great-grandson and later successor, conducted a tour of one of his factories when he saw a mechanical arm that one of the maintenance engineers had designed alone to entertain himself and the other engineers. Yamauchi saw the mechanical arm as a way to expand strongly on the fast-moving Japanese toy market, and commissioned engineer Gunpei Yokoi to create a mass-market version in time for the Christmas business. The toy known as "Ultra Hand" was a great success. After Yokoi was taken over by maintenance and firmly anchored in product development, Nintendo developed all kinds of mechanical and electronic toys.

In 1977, Nintendo hired Shigeru Miyamoto, unaware that this new and promising employee of any of these companies would become the most famous and influential game designer in the history of the game. Together, Miyamoto and Yokoi were instrumental in developing Nintendo's burgeoning expansion into the video game market. After years of designing and testing, Nintendo released the Famicom (which Westerners would know as a Nintendo Entertainment system). Nintendo sold nearly 62 million NES / Famicon units worldwide, laying the foundation for their future success in the gaming industry.

Although Nintendo is known today as one of the world's leading console manufacturers, they have never given up their roots For the past 130 years, Nintendo has been producing playing cards and is still hosting a bridge tournament known as the "Nintendo Cup".